ETA ready to make ceasefire permanent and verifiable

The armed Basque group ETA said on Saturday they were prepared to make "permanent and verifiable" a truce called earlier this month, even though the gesture was dismissed at the time by the Spanish government. The group also was willing to take further steps towards a negotiated end to its violent campaign for independence, two members of the group told the Basque newspaper Gara in an interview to be published on Sunday, according to its website.

"The objective is a democratic resolution of the conflict and to close the wound forever, and that means that everyone must act responsibly," the two ETA members said in the interview. The truce offer has been widely dismissed by the government and other political parties because the rebel band gave no further substantiation and has broken such ceasefires without warning in the past.

ETA last week called for international mediation for a peaceful solution. "ETA is willing to make the ceasefire permanent and verifiable, and to go further, if there are conditions to do so," according to the interview. International mediators helped end another protracted European guerrilla campaign, by the Provisional IRA group in Northern Ireland. A 1998 agreement provided for disarming by guerrillas and power sharing between rival republican and pro-British forces after 30 years of bloodshed.

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